My thoughts on the MOVEMENT and where BM:DM should go with it.

Black Mesa Archive The Cafeteria
#1

Hi guys,
My name is Brian, and I’ve been a long time player of Half life, CS, and adrenaline gamer.

I know there was a long and tedious thread you guys closed recently, and I didn’t get a chance to add my two cents worth before the topic was closed.

I’d like to say that I’m excited that you guys are making this game, and look forward to playing it more, IF the movement becomes more similar to HL1.

Now I know some of you guys keep bringing up the point of “spamming LJ” and that its noob or whatever. For most of the guys that played HL years after everyone else quit, we started to learn how high the skill cap really was. We started to learn that Half life, isn’t just a straight forward , run in a line, jump a few times shooter. The movement that you could do in half life 1 was artful. Even long jumping excessively to evade and dodge was part of the excitement and faced paced atmosphere of the game. Theres actually many different variations and ways to jump and move in the air with the long jump. Half life 1, with its movement, allows players to pick and choose their style of play, whether it be the assassin style ( silent long jumping, sneaking around and jumping around corners to crossbow headshot an enemy) , or it could be full balls to the wall aggression and speed style. The ability to “VERY quickly” move around the map with true purpose, picking up what you need, shooting off weapons on the fly.
Id like to post a couple links to videos, and I really insist you all watch them. If by the end of watching them, you aren’t impressed, excited, in awe of the speed and movement, in love with the ARTFUL movement and skilful kills, evasions, escapes, multikills etc. Then I would be very suprised, and I will no longer talk about the subject.
youtube.com/watch?v=HwbS55a8WDw
youtube.com/watch?v=qLeL-0_kgVE
youtube.com/watch?v=N2FZuzaTaBI
youtube.com/watch?v=mm5Zk9SRPds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWM1i_8sJ88

In my eyes, the movement should be almost a 100% replication of movement in HL1.

I know there has been a lot of discussion regarding, lets please the majority of players, which normally lie in the mediochre or decent skill levels.
Let me say this. If you create a game that has a very high skill cap, fast paced adrenaline play, with competitive spirit. You will probably have more players streaming the game on twitch, bringing more attention to the game. The more players that watch pro’s (when i say pro, i just mean a really good player) on twitch etc, will be inspired, and want to get as good as they are, creating a game that can become very competitive and popular.

Someone made a point that only 5% of HL’s userbase still play, due to the fact that great players can rape. In my eyes 5% of the user base play HL1 now, because well, the game is ancient. As fun as it is, its a very old game with outdated graphics, and the general population of people move to the newer , better graphic games out there.

Even though HL has a high skill cap, its not what you guys think it is. You don’t have to study the game , and get a degree in it to become good. You can become pretty good at the game in a fairly short amount of time, BUT to become masterful at the game it does take a while. ( Most masterful players, don’t spend ALL their time in public servers “raping noobs” because it gets boring to them, just like its boring to the noob who keeps dying.)
One of the great parts of Hl1, is that noob players can still have fun in public servers, lots of noob players till play hl1 and have fun, great players can have fun as well, and masterful players can have great fun, especially in organizing private matches vs each other (Which can be streamed on twitch or other sites and bring traffic to the game)

The feeling the game gives you is so rewarding , when your flying around the map with speed, killing enemies, picking up weapons etc. Just saying. Getting a few kills in black mesa currently doesn’t feel near as rewarding, because play styles are limited to much slower, straight forward styles.

If and when you reply to this , please don’t tell me that spamming LJ is not skillfull. There are so many skillful ways to long jump around in HL1, and you just generalize it all and say its spam. If you can’t hit someone who is long jumping around, (even though you have rocket launchers, grenades, shotguns, machine guns) Then thats your own fault. It’s not really that hard, you just shoot a nade or two near them, and they die…

Final thought

Please don’t slow this game down, let it be fast, and free, and exciting.
Also, crouch climbing was so key to Hl1, I hope you can find a way to put that into the source engine.
I know crouch climbing isn’t something that is realistic , in terms of what a human can do, but, it was just another tool in your movement kit to help develop your style, and get around the map more easily. HL1, had a real flow to the game, with the movement. Currently, black mesa has a clunky, slow, feel to it. (No offence, the game is still pretty awesome and will improve)

I just hope you guys will watch the video’s and look at the beauty and technique that is involved when you become great at the game. It doesn’t take a college degree, or a million hours to be able to do it. Once you get the hang of long jumping and bunny hopping, the learning curve becomes much easier to master the movement.

I know some of the “top players” might be coming off as arrogant or whatever. But keep in mind, these players are very passionate about the game, hence the reason they have played for so many years and got good at it. We understand how the game works, and feels in multiplayer, and to be honest, I think we have a good understanding of what’s important to keep, and bring over from HL1.

#2

I agree with everything he just said. No bhop and slow paced gameplay is what made me decide to stop playing HL2. Please re-create the movement of HL1 in this game!

#3

I concur as well… As an old school HLDM and Quake 3 player, I would love to see this game mimic the same movement style & weapon physics as hldm.

On the BM Wiki page, the following is stated:

“Multiplayer movement has not yet been fully developed. It is known that it will be different than Singleplayer Movement, and more similar to the original HLDM style of movement. The extent or details of this are not yet finalized or publicly known.”

I hope the devs are really listening to the community and are in the process of implementing the same style of play. The forum moderator wants us to have a civil debate as to why they should implement the above changes. Ultimately, it is up to them. If they really wanted a true remake, they would just do it, instead of asking us to give them reasons why they should bring back the old mechanics. If they decide not to listen to us, it would be detrimental to the competitive multiplayer community. Not only that, but it would dumb down the spirit of half life and wouldn’t capture a new audience that wants a skilled game, thus leading to a dead multiplayer scene.

I have already written in other threads about this and will not continue on the same rant. The people have spoken. The ball is in the devs court now. Let’s see how it unfolds.

#4

Good to hear. Like I said, I’m new to this forum, and relativly new to the project. So it’s good to know that other players have already brought this up, and there have been discussions about it.

#5

This kind of thing needs to be repeated more.

It annoys me when people believe that what gives a game mass casual appeal and what makes it competitive are zero sum. In fact those qualities help each other, I can’t think of any popular player vs player games that didn’t have a strong competitive scene. I can’t think of any competitive scene that lower skilled players didn’t enjoy watching.

I also want to second that highly skilled players driving out lower skilled ones is probably a myth. People who casually play games also casually leave them - not out of frustration, they just move on to new things. And of course the people who studied the game and played it religiously stay longer, there’s nothing suspicious about that result.

Also even if it were the case, removing mechanics that skilled players utilize wouldn’t help much. If someone is that much better than me, they don’t need engine exploits to destroy me, because they will always possess talent elsewhere. Those mechanics only make an appreciable difference between people of similar skill level. Cutting off the top level of the skill ceiling pretty much only effects the top level of the skill ceiling.

That said there may be other legitimate reasons to not add, remove, or modify any mechanic on a case-by-case basis.

#6

Your complaints about the movement have been heard and will be looked into. I can’t promise anything right now though as we are spread extremely thinly. As I have said, based on everything competitive players have been posting, we’ve put together a list of MP priorities to work on for the first major update, which includes many of your suggestions and ideas. If we can achieve what we want to for it, you won’t be disappointed.

One thing I am interested in hearing, which I haven’t heard anyone talk about yet, is the base movement. Ignoring other factors such as Tau jumping/bunny hopping, etc. What is the opinion on the base movement? As in - the move speed, the friction, the acceleration, etc. What do you like or think can be improved?

#7

something like:

maxspeed:
300 units per second

sv_friction 4

sv_gravity 800

#8

  1. The hight of normal jumps is too low… You should adjust hight for normal jumps to what it was like in HL1. Also adjust crouch so you can’t crouchjump higher than it was in HL1 (in HL2 I always feel like my player goes prone when I press crouch… I think that’s the viewhight that is so low in HL2 when crouching… But not sure how it is in BM, didn’t test yet…)

  2. When you strafe right and strafe left right after that, it feels a bit Counter-Strike like… But I’m not sure if it’s really very different to HL/AG or if it’s just me.

  3. I want a working walk key and no footsteps while crouching and walking. That would be great. But it has been suggested already.

Edit: If you want to make the acceleration and movement speed closer to HL1DM you should download New Gauge Half-Life (mod) for HL1 and watch your movementspeed on your HUD. That’s one thing I would like to see in BM :smiley: M too. The number of your movementspeed (units per second = ups) in the bottom center of your HUD. Then you can make some tests and compare the real differences between HL and BM :smiley: M.

#9

I just wanted to share/add on here in terms of movement. I was part of the development team of CSPromod and we replicated goldsrc movement pretty well. Aside from putting a cap on bunnyhop, we had stuff pretty close. I’m still in contact with the programmer who did the movement for that so I could put you guys in touch if you want or even share the source code for you to take a look at, if you want.

Just my 2 cents.

#10

Please PM me and we’ll talk.

#11

I do like some fast paced shooters. I played a bit of Tribes:Ascend, and I absolutely adore Titanfall’s freedom of movement in terms of wallruns and using the height of the map to get an advantage. I can also get behind having a high skillcap, as learning champions like Azir in League of Legends give players incredible tactical options. But the difference between these games’ mechanics and the HLDM bhop mechanics is quite simple- the former games are balanced, and have mechanics intended as part of the experience. Tribes and Titanfall explicitly train the player in their systems so that players can wallrun, double jump, ski, etc. but leave room for players to discover more about the movement systems through further play. And as annoying as the smart pistol in Titanfall can be, the overall design intent is very solid- it allows newer players a chance to practice their positioning, because getting kills with it is ALL about superior positioning and planning ahead of your opponent, or punishing them for not watching their backs.

As for League, Azir’s skillcap is very high. The champ is difficult to even somewhat competently use for the average player, but people in the pro scene can do absolutely beautiful plays with him. He is particularly insane in Faker’s hands because not only has he figured out double-dash ults, but he can do them in under a second to dislodge people from their towers and murder them, or cut off their avenues of escape so his team can follow up. But, once again, these are all things you can do within the parameters of the existing game mechanics.
(Granted, League is very bad at teaching the player any of the roles of the meta, let alone advanced champion mechanics, which is a major fault of the game for someone who’s just trying to be average at it.)

Bunny hopping is firmly outside of developer-intended play. It is a movement system exploit that lacks any kind of explanation for a newer player to figure out how to use. The people that can use it will absolutely murder those who can’t, and most times a newer player would probably just ragequit and go back to single player, because who honestly can stand someone that abuses glitches so regularly? I mean, is it like Kstyle in Gunz, so ubiquitous that it’s an indispensable part of playing the game? I don’t really think so.

If the BM team does include such exploits as game mechanics in future patches, then I will almost certainly avoid multiplayer unless they have some manner of instructing the player in using them. I already do enough googling trying to figure out how to get up the ladder in League, I really don’t want another MP game I have to research on the side.

#12

I think k3nny1550 is a bot, don’t reply guys its just a spam bot that tries to make us play LoL or buy tribes

#13

Final warning. Stop disparaging users’ opinions. Next one is a permaban.

#14

Bunnyhopping always had two sides to the coin.

What started as an unintended bug became popular and greatly contributed to some titles succes. Q3 & HLDM.
Wheres other games tried to mimic a controlled jump speed gaining mechanic like in Painkiller.
There would always be players for and against this subject.

I think it is save to say it grew in popularity in some point and time and no longer was recongized as a bug but as a movement feature of the game.

What Black Mesa will do with this one I can only say that I’m curious about it & open eitherway.
My advice is look around at other games today, what do they already have and what are they like?
So you know how to set yourself apart.
Look at the type of gaming crowds their are, and which ones don’t have a game to play these days because it is nearly all the same.

Look at the background of the game you are remaking,.
History has a tendency to repeat itself.

Then look at your goal what you are aiming for.

In respect hldms crowd at its peak embraced bunnyhop.
Until Valve had removed it. from a developers piont of view I can certainly understand or imagen their reasoning behind that decision.
In Single player the game shouldn’t have bunnyhop. but what about multiplayer?
As the debate goes how hl1 was “intended” to be. "Run. Think. Shoot. Live" theres no bunnyhoping in there
It never really ended.
then there was that magic that happens when something unintended from the developers perspective, evolves.
A little spark that gave birth to the unintended success.

well we are here again :stuck_out_tongue:

The history books show HLDM community has outlived Quake3 which for the record was later released then hl1 and had support inbetween such as quakelive.
If that doesn’t tell you enough well I know what it does say.
It tells you can’t ignore such key features that contributed to its lecagy. and probably have to come up with a decision or a compromise.
I think valve made a mistake and was saved by counter-strike.
Yet at the same time hldm seemed be really enjoying themselves, although nearly all of its popular server sided mods enabled bunnyhop.
servians, ujjl, ag.
It makes one wonder what kept it alive for that long and somewhat today?
I think it is both :slight_smile: keep it under the same roof and you got numbers that will last.

#15

I just want to give TextFAMGuy1 a +1 on the closing post he wrote on biggy’s thread, every word that he said is true.

Even though you are a competitive player doesn’t mean you can speak highly and lower/ignore other’s concerns and opinions, I’m glad there is someone that knows where such things can lead to, I’ve seen more than enough proof of what he said, in competitive sites I won’t name.

Competitive players should keep an open mind and realize how their opinions influence other’s gameplay and wishes, it should be a well balanced/divided game.

#16

You guys have to understand that if you want to make a skilled moving feature (in the sense of allowing players to perform an action giving them more speed) there are only two natural choices. By skilled moving feature, I mean some game mechanics that has a long learning curve, and which efficiency is high enough to discriminate people mastering it from people who don’t. This means that a skilled moving feature should allow high skilled players to perform much better than casual ones, thus gaining much more speed than the latter in the previous case. There are differents options here. One can base such a feature on rhythm/synchronization skills. This is really poor as one can easily check or imagine, so its better to base such a mechanics on the interaction between the keys you press and your mouse motion, thus also constraining the physics (that is, you can’t have too high accelerations and non smooth curves). This also emphasizes (and even create) the skill related to the interaction between aim and the previous moving features, allowing high skilled players to aim while still moving well.

So, based on this fact, what is a natural choice now? It is a choice that is both simple (that is, coupling the mouse motion and the keyboard keys in a simple way) and that does not break the isotropy of the eight possible moving directions of your character. If you want that, then you have only two choices:

  1. strafe jump à la quake 3, where airmove is highly constrained and where you have to do instantaneous flick in order to maximize your acceleration (even in half beat yes),

  2. bunny jump à la quakeworld and HLDM. This one has airmove, and consequently allows players to be much more free and much less predictable than the previous one.

Now, one can try to break the isotropy of directions and obtain some shitty physics like CPM has. I wouldn’t recommend that, because breaking the isotropy of directions means that the ways to move a player has at its disposable are non symmetric, thus making him even more predictable. Indeed, if you break the isotropy of directions, then because you would still want them to be symmetric with respect to the one induced by the direction the crosshair is looking at, knowing the orientation of the player (that is where he is aiming at), you would instantly infers the few moving possibilities allowed for him. This is totally untrue for 1) and 2) above. One is able to aim in another direction of its motion, which is never the case in a game as shitty as CPM.

Now, one can also make the choice to have no skilled moving features. Doing so is the best way to kill lots of paths and expressive power, simplifying the game to the extreme. Feel free to chose the one you want to take now, without plagiarizing maybe? :}

PS: Why do you guys believe that all opinions have the same value or legitimacy? I mean, wouldn’t Einstein be more placed to speak about general relativity than most of you guys?

#17

Right off the bat I’d like to say that part of the point of the mod is to recreate Half-Life 1. That does include the famous advanced movement exploits that played huge roles in the original game, TextFAMGUY1 says it is on the list of things to work on. However Black Mesa is not identical to Half-Life. The maps are different, the proportions are different, the physics engine is different, and the times are different. You’re getting too uptight over this. Instead of arguing why I think you should detail how it should work. You once were an expert on this and probably know a lot about it. Break down how the mechanic existed and what new options it opened up. Valve has removed it, Crowbar Collective must add it back in.

#18

TextFAMGUY1[/size] . Thanks for your quick reply to the subject, I appreciate it. So far, I feel as if the base movement is pretty nice to be honest. As I play some more today, I’ll try and give you some more detail. The friction feels nice too, and so far I like how the crouch works. It would be interesting to test the crouch , on a server that allowed constant long jumping. Just to test the feel of it :smiley: . Despite trying to pick apart their game guys, we should try to offer our positive opinions on the game too. Constructive criticism, and appreciation for the parts of the game you love, and think they did well will go along way i think.
If bunnyhopping does get it enabled, it would be interesting to see how the base movement does with that too.

Anyways, Thanks again for listening

#19

Oh, now that I’m thinking about it, it might be really interesting to implement skimming/wallclipping :
youtu.be/OSKWERCb-5c?t=9m51ssee how motion is not stopped by wall hit (at 9min50)? See also this
youtube.com/watch?v=htZzbs4BxCsI don’t know how this one is supposed to work, but I think it might not be too complicated to implement actually (and it is really easy to perform)

Note that it would also make bunny hop much more easy to master, because trajectories wouldn’t need to be error free. This would be a nice simplification, because it would make the game smoother and less “harsh”, thus emphasizing speed and smoothness rather than useless perfection in trajectories as HLDM do.

#20

Loving the attention that this thread is getting!

Founded in 2004, Leakfree.org became one of the first online communities dedicated to Valve’s Source engine development. It is more famously known for the formation of Black Mesa: Source under the 'Leakfree Modification Team' handle in September 2004.